We're off on another adventure, but this time with our adult children and the girl's partners in tow. I suspect they decided it might be a good idea to start keeping an eye on their aging, travel addicted parents. Actually, it was our oldest daughter's wish to sponsor a family get together over the holiday season. She is firmly rooted in Switzerland and it has been many years since the rest of us celebrated Christmas with her. Cambodia was her choice destination and although we have been here before, it is new territory for the rest and we are more than happy to return to a country that we enjoyed back in 2012. It took our bodies a few days to get accustomed to the 14 hour time zone difference but we are in full gear now.
We are at end of our first week together and no one has been sent off for a 'time out' yet, although the parents may be the first to be sent to their room when a raucous, late night out presents itself for the youngsters. In Phnom Penh we shared some somber moments at the very descriptive Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields, depicting the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million Cambodians by the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge party, led by Pol Pot during the 1975-1979 period. We had many more happy times together, sharing stories and having lots of laughs, while sitting at the pool, wandering around the city or spending evenings together with cocktails in hand.
We are now in Siem Reap visiting the ancient temples via tuk tuk and catching other city highlights, including the Angkor National Museum (Khmer history), vibrant Pub Street and the many markets. We were also entertained by an acrobatic show performed by disadvantaged street kids, who attend a nearby arts school that the concerts help fund. Another interesting visit was to the Apopo HeroRAT Centre, where they are using trained African Giant Pouched rats (long life, light weight, easy to transport, incredible sense of smell) to detect landmines left all over the country from multiple wars.
Christmas is not a big celebration in this Buddhist country but we have come across Christmas decorations that are primarily set up to draw in the tourist crowd. No turkeys in sight though. There was one common Christmas theme though.......our kids were out of bed before we were on Christmas morning. However, instead of having a sneak peak at the gifts under the Christmas tree, they all headed out at 5 am for the sunrise at the Angkor Wat temple......we joined them a few hours later!
Tomorrow we will move on to the island of Koh Rong Sanloem, a lovely sand beach resort destination located just off the west coast of Cambodia, where we find or create our own New Year's Eve party.
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| Our first morning in Phnom Penh. Waiting for our Swiss daughter and her partner to arrive,we went for a short walk around the hotel neighbourhood watching out for ATM's (to get Cambodian riels) and supermarkets for supplies. It didn't take long in the 33C heat to stop for refreshments. |
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| The Central Market in Phnom Penh. The local markets are always interesting to walk through, observing the type of goods for sale and watching locals purchase unrefrigerated meat and fish. |
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| Walking along the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh we noticed this well decorated tourist riverboat (among many others) set to take guests on dinner cruises along the river. |
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| Angkor Wat at sunrise. Truth be told, I borrowed this shot from my Swiss daughter since Pocahontas and I were in bed sleeping at the time. We did the sunset picture 8 years ago and knew there would be thousands there attempting to get the perfect sunrise shot, so we joined up with them a few hours later. |
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| The lovely Bayon temple within the Angkor Thom complex. The king's face was carved into the stone facade of all the towers within the temple. The Angkor Thom complex was more than 10 square miles, once housing over 1 million inhabitants.......at the same time (~1200) that London, England was home to 50,000 people. |
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Stone wall carvings in a narrow hallway of the Terrace of the Leper King within Angkor Thom. These late 12th century carvings were well preserved due to a location well protected from the elements (and a ways away from the tourist masses).
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| The Preah Khan Temple. The entrance way ahead led to a long hallway that went for more than 200 metres with access to may rooms on each side. The temple was the home of the king (Jayavarman VII) while the Bayon Temple was being built. |
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| Back in Siem Reap we went to a show under the Big Tent, sponsored by the Phare group who established a nearby school for disadvantaged children. The school features the arts and showcases the students in nightly, near capacity shows that help to support the schools. Many of the acrobatics performed rivaled Cirque de Soleil performances, telling a story at the same time. |
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| The fascinating Apopo centre where we learned about the use of African Giant Pauchon rats from Tanzania that are trained to detect landmines. They are much more efficient and safer than metal detectors because they smell the explosive material rather than just metal objects. We were told that the HeroRATS can cover territory the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes while it would take 4 days to do the same with a metal detector.....and not a single rat has perished in the searches which started in Laos back in 2010. |
